Friday, March 16, 2012

High on Studies,Low on score

This year is the bicentenary year of Charles Dickens, the famous English novelist of the Victorian age , known for his masterpieces like “A Tale of Two Cities” , “ Pickwick Papers , ‘A Christmas Carol “& “Great Expectations”. He is considered a chronicler of contemporary England- London in particular- and portrayed immortal characters like Pip,, Miss Havisham , Estella , Uncle Scrooge etc, etc .His novel “Great Expectations” was prescribed in our M.A. syllabus , in the seventies, under Victorian literature. Both Dickens and Hardy caught my fancy and are to this day my favourite authors. Hardy’s novel “Tess of the d’Urbervilles “, also prescribed in the syllabus, interested me so much that , it was only Hardy and Dickens that I concentrated on. I hoped to score well in the paper, ironically, Victorian literature was the only paper in which I fell short of fifty , which fact rankles me today even after 36-37 years . After finishing my studies, I went on to read more works by these two authors and became their. ardent admirer. Later I also learnt that the story of Hindi movie “ Dulhan Ek Raat Ki “ was based on “Tess”. The Victorian ‘justice’ meted out to Tess sets one thinking about the ironies, life is made up of.

5 comments:

  1. i am amazed that you still remember the texts prescribed in M.A which was so long back. i cant recall exactly my syllabus though just 12 years back!
    one thing i do remember is the way you were passionate about Dickens & Hardy & their writings, i was about Emily Bronte & her only book Wuthering Heights. To this day i love that novel

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  2. ....it was my love for the English language that led me to do my M.A. in English. I knew fully well that career wise, this would lead me nowhere. The other novels that appealed to me were Fielding's "Tom Jones" and Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre - a plain simple orphaned girl , who suffers at the hands of her own relatives with whom she feels forced to live to get through life. Literature does give you a way of looking at thing !

    Thanks !

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  3. agree with Ashwini! Honestly I don't take natural inclination to reading his books :) except Pride and Prejudice of course!

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